Judge: Witnesses in hate crime trial threatened

SYRACUSE, N.Y. 
Three people who were at a New York house party when a transgendered woman was murdered testified Wednesday that the Syracuse man accused of the crime directed an anti-gay slur at the victim.

However, none of those witnesses could positively say Dwight DeLee was the person who fired the shot that killed 22-year-old Lateisha (lah-TEE'-shuh) Green last November.

Meanwhile, Onondaga County Court Judge William Walsh said authorities were investigating threats made against prosecution witnesses, two of whom on Tuesday recanted prior statements they made to police that they saw DeLee shoot Green.

Walsh said the threatened witnesses "named names" and those names included at least one member of DeLee's family.

The judge warned that authorities could pursue criminal charges and told DeLee if he is linked to those threats "it will be very, very bad for your defense."

The developments came as testimony in the three-day trial ended. Attorneys were scheduled to deliver closing arguments Thursday. The case will then go to the jury for deliberations.

Erica Allison, 19, who lived at the house, said she heard DeLee refer to Green as a "faggot" moments before Green was shot. However, Allison said she never saw DeLee or anyone else with the gun, which belonged to her brother.

Allison said it was widely known that Green, who was born Moses Cannon, was a male living as a female. The night Green was shot she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

David Junious, 17, Allison's brother, said when the car with Green pulled up to the curb, "everyone started getting real loud. No one wanted them around." Witnesses testified people at the party had been drinking, some heavily.

Junious said he told DeLee about the gun in the house.

"After I told him about the gun, he said about shooting those faggots," Junious said. "He went up to the car and then everyone started running around and the car sped off."

However, Junious also said he did not see DeLee fire the gun, although he did see DeLee carrying the gun back into the house minutes later.

Police recovered the rifle from an upstairs bedroom at the house, where it was stuffed between a bed mattress and box spring.

Another witness, Alyssa Davis, 19, said she heard a dark-skinned black man utter the slur and stick a rifle in the car window but never heard the gun fire. Davis said she didn't see the gunman's face, but recognized the voice as DeLee's and said he was the only dark-skinned male at the house at the time of the shooting.

Other witnesses have testified they heard others use the slur and that the gunman said nothing.

The defense's lone witness was a DNA expert who testified that a DNA examination of the gun found evidence of three contributors, but none were DeLee.

However, the expert admitted to prosecutors that DNA evidence could have been removed by wiping the gun down or by stuffing it in between the bed mattresses.

As the trial was winding down Wednesday, the U.S. Senate was considering legislation to extend current federal hate crimes protections to gays and other groups. The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, named after the gay Wyoming college student murdered in 1998, was proposed as an amendment to a $680 billion bill to approve defense programs.

The bill would expand federal hate crimes – currently defined as those motivated by race, color, national origin or religion – to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

A final vote on the measure wasn't expected until later in the week. The House passed a similar hate crimes bill in April.